The inaccuracy of most "GB" polls deserves to be more strongly challenged across the board. The subsamples for England are valid, but the subsamples for Cymru and Scotland are far too small to be representative, especially given the totally different political systems of devolved government, national-only parties with significant support, the impact of different electoral and voting processes in non-Westminster elections and even the tendency of multi-national parties to give themselves different electoral descriptions to those in England, often perpetrated to give a false impression of national autonomy rather than being "branch offices" of London HQs.
It's time for the pollsters to give up the silly game of pretending "GB" is a polity (there hasn't been a "GB only" election since the rotten borough days of 1796!). Instead we should move to simultaneous or sequential polling of each if the 4 distinct polities (including N. Ireland) which can then be aggregated or dissected with rather accuracy and insight. As a measure overall of voter opinion in England these polls discussed in the article have a certain utility but exactly the same caveats as identified apply to all the other "GB" polls in relation to the total picture across these islands that currently make up the UK state.
It's also way past the time for Scottish polls to give up weighting by 2014 Independence Referendum recall. Despite the long elapse of time, the recall of those who did vote is probably reasonably accurate due to the historic nature of that vote, the fact that around one third of the electorate were not even legally entitled to vote due to age and migration, including everyone born after 1998, renders the weighted result very dubious.
I do think "the left" needs to accept that corbyn as a person is just unpopular overall, no matter how much of a darling he is to a certain segment of the population. many of corbyn's & the left's policies & proscriptions poll far better than the man himself, and it would serve them well to develop & promote new talent without the same negative polarisation.
As an active campaigner I always want to know how many 'undecideds' there are and who they are. I wish these details were given more prominece in the popular press.
good article. would be interested to see those support-by-segment numbers with the corbyn party added into the mix - one would assume he takes a lot from the "progressive activist" green & labour support, but would be good to see it validated (or equally, disproven).
The inaccuracy of most "GB" polls deserves to be more strongly challenged across the board. The subsamples for England are valid, but the subsamples for Cymru and Scotland are far too small to be representative, especially given the totally different political systems of devolved government, national-only parties with significant support, the impact of different electoral and voting processes in non-Westminster elections and even the tendency of multi-national parties to give themselves different electoral descriptions to those in England, often perpetrated to give a false impression of national autonomy rather than being "branch offices" of London HQs.
It's time for the pollsters to give up the silly game of pretending "GB" is a polity (there hasn't been a "GB only" election since the rotten borough days of 1796!). Instead we should move to simultaneous or sequential polling of each if the 4 distinct polities (including N. Ireland) which can then be aggregated or dissected with rather accuracy and insight. As a measure overall of voter opinion in England these polls discussed in the article have a certain utility but exactly the same caveats as identified apply to all the other "GB" polls in relation to the total picture across these islands that currently make up the UK state.
It's also way past the time for Scottish polls to give up weighting by 2014 Independence Referendum recall. Despite the long elapse of time, the recall of those who did vote is probably reasonably accurate due to the historic nature of that vote, the fact that around one third of the electorate were not even legally entitled to vote due to age and migration, including everyone born after 1998, renders the weighted result very dubious.
I do think "the left" needs to accept that corbyn as a person is just unpopular overall, no matter how much of a darling he is to a certain segment of the population. many of corbyn's & the left's policies & proscriptions poll far better than the man himself, and it would serve them well to develop & promote new talent without the same negative polarisation.
As an active campaigner I always want to know how many 'undecideds' there are and who they are. I wish these details were given more prominece in the popular press.
Can the Tories recover? It will be difficult, but they might, if they are courageous and honest.
Many of their current MPs should join the Lib Dems.
https://hellish2050.substack.com/p/what-has-happened-to-british-politics
good article. would be interested to see those support-by-segment numbers with the corbyn party added into the mix - one would assume he takes a lot from the "progressive activist" green & labour support, but would be good to see it validated (or equally, disproven).